Taang Week
by TheFalsePoet
Summary: Taang week 2011.  I know I'm starting late, and these will be out of order.  Hope you enjoy them, though.  First one will be prompt 4, Globe.
1. Globe

**I do not own any of the characters or the world in which they reside.**

**This is for Taang week, 2011. Out of order, but I will be working towards getting them all in here. Enjoy!**

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><p>Toph had given up on figuring out what the little airhead was up to the past few days. Even when she had asked him why they were traveling at random, to places they had never been before, where there were no cities or people for miles around, where even the spirits had left the terrain uncharted and untouched, the only answer she got was, "It's a surprise." Toph was getting very upset at the lack of a reason. After ten years of traveling the world with Twinkle Toes she had gotten used to never staying in one spot for very long, but the last few days had gotten ridiculous.<p>

Just as she expected, five minutes after landing Appa in the present canyon, Aang was back on his head and yelling "yip, yip." The surprise couldn't be worth this much tedium. Nothing was worth this much tedium.

"That's it! You have some explaining to do, monk boy! Every year, for the past three years, Katara agrees to watch after the little guys for one week. Normally, that's the best week of the year! It's our vacation from parenting! It's our time to relax on the beach or in Omashu or anywhere in the world! Why are you wasting that whole week on these five minute stops this time, airhead? We must have stopped a hundred times just for you to walk around aimlessly for two minutes and then continue on to the next stop. I demand answers!"

"One more place! Just let me stop in one more place, then I'll be done, and you can have your surprise. I know you'll like it. I swear! Just, one more stop."

Aang then reached into his bag in Appa's saddle, where his wife couldn't "see" what he was doing, and retrieved a small sphere of metal and earth. He passed his hand over it briefly, then placed it back where it came from. As he was heading back to Appa's head to grab the reins, Toph reached for the bag.

"No!" Aang hurriedly grabbed the bag that contained his precious sphere, and kept it from the diminutive earthbender. "Please, just trust me. One more stop, and it'll all be worth it."

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><p>The flight to what was promised to be their last stop took hours. By the time they arrived on the small, uninhabited island, just south of the Fire Nation capital, Toph had fallen asleep in the saddle on Appa's back.<p>

Aang pulled out the sphere and hopped off Appa's head, down to the sand below. After a few minutes he jumped right back up, to take a seat next to his wife, careful not to wake her. Again he passed his hand over the surface of the metal and earth ball, briefly adjusting the surface with earthbending, then looking it over to appreciate his work.

Toph slowly began to stir. "Alright, Twinkles." She yawned and stretched before sitting up. "What's the surprise?"

"Well, Toph, I wanted to give you something that could truly show how much you mean to me, but when I thought about it I realized how many problems there is with that. I mean, first, I don't own anything to give except for my love, and my self, and you already have that. Then there's the fact that nothing I could offer would truly be enough to compensate for all you've given me. You taught me first how to earthbend, then how to face all life's problems head on. You've given me our two children, and I could never get close to…" Toph's arms were crossed over her chest. Her foot tapped impatiently. "Well, I would love to give you the world, and this is as close as I can come to doing that."

Aang handed Toph the sphere. It was a perfect, miniature map of the entire world, all of it to scale. The metal portion covered the surface wherever the oceans, and rivers and lakes resided, and the rock was shaped perfectly to replicate every valley and hill across every nation. Toph could even feel a few miniscule pieces of earth raised up on the island they must currently be sitting on to represent Appa, Aang and herself.

Toph looked over at Aang without expression. She said, in a tone completely unreadable, "This is what you've been doing for the past week?"

"Umm… yeah." Aang scratched the back of his neck nervously, hoping he didn't mess up and waste a week's worth of vacation.

Toph smiled. "This is amazing. The craftsmanship is uncanny, it's perfect, to the smallest detail! Aang, this is the most beautiful thing anybody's ever made for me. And it kinda proves that I taught you well. But…" Toph said the last word pointedly, and let it hang for much longer period of time than needed.

"….. but?"

"That little speech you gave was the most heinous pool of sap I have ever heard, Twinkles. Really? You'd love to give me the world if you could? That was terrible." Toph smirked. "Now come here so I can kiss you for it."


	2. Job

**Ok, this is an interesting one. Hope you enjoy it. I am not a religious man, at all, but I thought this would make an interesting story, and it's way different than the whole "It's my job" kinda "Job" stories. Again, sorry for the delays and out of order stuff for Taang week. Will be getting the rest of them out, though, I swear.  
><strong>

**I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender, nor the characters involved or the world they inhabit.**

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><p>"So Koh says to the Avatar, 'of course he's a good guy. Of course he does everything that the spirits call upon him to do. He has everything he needs! Listen, the rich, the powerful, those that the spirits have blessed with such a good life and a caring family, they only act good because they have nothing to fear.'<p>

"Then, the Avatar looks Koh in the face and asks him, 'What can I do to convince you otherwise? There is not a man alive that does not abide more strictly to the balance, and the true way. '

"'Then allow me to test him,' rumbled Koh's voice. 'I will prove to you that his devotion to the true way is only because the true way found him blessed from birth to have all he needs for happiness. It has led him to nothing different than the happiness he was born into. These others, that commit such atrocities even my mind would not dream of committing upon nature and their fellow mortals, they are not ignorant of the path of balance, they just have never arrived at such splendor through it as this, your loyal subject.' Koh wrapped his elongated body around his audience. 'Give me a chance to test him. I swear not to harm a hair on his body.'"

Aang appeared in the doorway to overhear the story that Toph was reciting their small son, Tenzin. Toph could sense his displeasure at catching her telling this particular story. Aang hated this story, and she knew it.

Of course, that didn't mean she was going to stop telling it. "And the Avatar agreed to Koh's deal. The next day, the man was sitting by himself on a hill above his expansive farm, meditating when a messenger approached- "

Aang made his way over to his son's bedside, and bending down he whispered, "whatever happens, the story isn't true, ok? You remember that. The Avatar would never allow these things to happen to anybody, ok?"

Tenzin, barely awake, nodded and mumbled incoherently.

"I'm just telling the stories I heard as a child. He wanted a scary one." Toph wore her most devilish smirk, knowing that the story always irked her husband. She knew the conversation she was going to hear as she crawled into bed today. It played through her head as though it had already occurred, because it had, a few times.

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><p>"<em>I just don't like that story, alright? It makes the Avatar, a NOBLE position, look like he's nothing more than a braggart. 'Ooo, look at my pupil, ooo he's so pure.'"<em>

"_Aang, it's not like the story is about you."_

"_Yeah, it kind of is. It's not true, though."_

"_Hey, I just know what I was told." A long silence would sit in the air here before Toph speaks out from behind a conniving grin, "and I was told it happened."_

"_I happen to be pretty close to the Avatar-"_

"_Really? What's he like?"_

"_Oh shush... just saying, I kind of know the guys. They would not consent to that."_

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><p>She snickered a bit before continuing with her story. Tenzin's eyes were closed, but he was still not quite asleep. "So a messenger approached and told the man, 'rebels, from the forest, they have come and stolen your hippo-cows and killed all your servants. I alone survived.'<p>

"Before the first messenger could finish his report, a second came up to him screaming, 'Sir, sir! A fire broke out, your barn, it's been destroyed. The servants couldn't be saved, nor the sheep. I alone survived to tell you.'

"Before the second messenger could finish his report, though, a third...'" The story continued as Tenzin drifted off.

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><p>As Toph approached their room, she noticed that Aang was in lotus position in the middle of their floor. His breathing and heart-rate were lowered, but she could tell he was no longer meditating. As she entered she sat next to him, knees pulled up to her chin, ankles crossed, and arms wrapped casually around her shins. She leaned her head gently into her husbands shoulder.<p>

"What's up, Twinkles? Bad news from the spirit world? Got a new job for us to run off to take care of? I think it's Sokka and Suki's turn to baby-sit."

"No, it's not that." Aang let out a brief sigh. "It happened… His name was Avatar El."

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><p><strong>Get it? Book of Job? 'El' being the oldest Hebrew name for God? Ehh? Alright, it's a bit dorky. Sorry.<strong>


End file.
